Seattle Schools Board Special Meeting May 13, 2025

There we go.

Good evening, everyone.

We will call the meeting to order momentarily and SPS TV will begin recording.

Can you all hear me?

Yes we can hear you.

Yes we can hear you.

Can someone speak because I can't I can't hear any video.

I can see the sign language interpreter.

Thank you very much.

Director Sarju can you hear us now.

So Gina are you talking.

I did just ask if yes I will head nod yes.

Never mind I've got the audio now.

Perfect.

Awesome.

Well, then the May 13th, 2025 Board Special Meeting is called to order at 5.08 p.m.

We would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and the traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people.

For the record, I'll call the roll.

Vice President Briggs.

Here.

Director Clark.

Present.

Director Hersey.

Here.

Director Mizrahi.

Present.

Director Rankin.

Here.

Director Sarju.

Aki.

And this is President Ta.

This evening, the item on the agenda is a work session on the superintendent search process.

Just to recap, during our April 23rd regular board meeting, we voted to authorize a contract with the executive search firm HYA to support our superintendent search process.

We are now this evening joined by the HYA team and team to plan out the next steps in this process and confirm the overall timeline.

The H.Y.A. does have a presentation and we will want to do introductions.

But just to kind of ground us and start us out here, I want to talk about a little bit about the themes that we heard from our engagement sessions on the 24th and 23rd or on the 24th and the 30th of April, as we sort of talked with community about what they wanted to see in a search firm process.

And some of the themes were building trust with the SPS community, needing to have more accountability in the district, need a superintendent to articulate the vision for a district.

Don't rush the process.

We want to be excited for a new superintendent.

Need some need for it on education on what the superintendent does.

and engaging communities furthest from educational justice in the process.

Like I mentioned at the start here, we will have a presentation from H.Y.A. tonight that will guide our conversation.

I'm going to pass it now to H.Y.A. for introductions of their team as well as H.Y.A. I don't you have not officially had an opportunity to meet board members.

I don't know if you want us to do introductions as well, but look to you there for to help lead that conversation.

Turn it over to you all.

Well, thank you so much.

It's a pleasure to be here tonight with the Board of Education, and we would love to have an introduction from each of them as well.

I'm Nancy Perez, and I'm the Chief Operating Officer for Hazard Young Etienne Associates, and I also serve on the teams for all of the large urban searches, and so I bring With me tonight, experience having served on the nation's largest school systems executive searches for over the last decade.

Good evening, Makai Ali.

I'll be the executive lead responsible for the day-to-day operations of this search and look forward to working very closely and intimately with each and every one of you.

H-Y-A, did you have one more team member you wanted to introduce?

No, let me see.

I believe that's it.

Perfect.

Board directors.

So I'm board director top, president top.

My district is in District 6, which is West Seattle, South Park, Soto, Pioneer Square, Georgetown area.

And this is my second year on the school board.

I will just call on the next person.

Yeah.

Hey my name is Brandon Hersey.

I represent District 7 down in Southeast Seattle and I am racking up my sixth and final year on the board.

ELLIE WILSON- Vice President Briggs.

Hi I'm Evan Briggs.

I am District 3 and I am also in my second year on the board.

Nice to meet all of you.

And thanks for your help.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Director Mizrahi.

DIRECTOR MIZRAHI.

I'm Joe Mizrahi.

I represent District 4 which is Fremont, Ballard, Queen Anne, Magnolia neighborhood in North Seattle.

And I am just a shade over a year off board.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Director Sarju.

MICHELLE SORGEAU I live in and represent District 5. And at 12.01 A.M.

this evening I will have 28 weeks left on school board.

DIRECTOR HAMPSON- Director Rankin.

LIZA RANKIN ALONG WITH Brandon the the senior members of the board with a big old five and a half years so far.

So in my sixth year of my so this is this the.

Second year of my second term I live in District 1. And yeah that was it right.

Yeah super excited to kick this off with you all.

Director Clark.

Hi great to meet you both tonight.

I'm Director Clark.

I represent and live in District 2, which is, I guess, Northwest Seattle and really excited to have your collaboration on our superintendent search.

Those are the board directors here in Seattle.

Pass it over to you now.

Dr. Perez.

Thank you.

Wait, I'm sorry.

May I just jump in really quickly?

Because I noticed earlier that it looked like Ms. Vinson was trying to talk when you guys were doing introductions.

And I think she was muted, so we couldn't hear her.

So I just wanted to note that in case she wanted to introduce herself.

Is she part of your team?

Yes, she can introduce herself.

Can you hear me?

Hi, can you hear me?

We can hear you now.

I can, yes.

I'm having a little bit of technology challenges.

Good evening.

My name is Tahira Vinson.

I will be supporting Kai Ali and Nancy Perez with the search, providing project management support and also supporting you all with the board portal.

That is the school board supporting you all.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Vice President Briggs.

Appreciate that as we navigate the online format.

Pass it over to Dr. Perez to, I think, kick us off here in the presentation for our planning meeting.

Great.

Well, it's our absolute pleasure to be here tonight in the first step of the engage phase, which is to really plan out the search.

And so we have a presentation that we'd like to walk through tonight that will make sure that all the board members have the scope of the work that's going to be done as well as some decisions that need to be made.

We'll just tell you when to advance to the next slide, if that's okay, since you guys are controlling the presentation.

So we'll go to the next slide and I'll turn it over to Mr. Ali.

All right.

Thank you very kindly folks for your time and attention and I would not belabor.

The slide that's before you details the HYA's signature processes.

So right now, as we speak, we're in the engage phase.

The engage phase will entail intrinsic and deep community engagement.

We're going to do roughly 20 sessions or so, virtual as well as in-person.

We're going to work very closely with several of you board members You've offered yourselves up to be very useful because you do have some relationships we want to leverage, i.e. the business community as well as the union.

And then, of course, we'll work very closely with each of you as well as the staff on any other organizations you believe we ought to engage relative to the engagement phase.

And so the engagement phase will go until June.

The recruitment commences tomorrow.

We go live tomorrow with the announcement, the job announcement as provided by your staff, we've already prepped it, it's on a timer and ready to go tomorrow.

We'll then begin a very strategic and targeted recruitment strategy that's active and aggressive recruitment.

And then of course, the website will be open for passive recruitment.

So what is what are the differences?

The passive recruitment aspect, any individual will get the tweet, or the social media hit, they'll look into one of the publications for which we'll use, they'll hear about and they'll apply.

The active and aggressive recruitment is our network of associates throughout the country, getting on the phone as well as all of our other ways in which we communicate in order to curate an experience and bring forth individuals we believe match elements of the leadership profile report, which we'll discuss later, but also who have the necessary experience in order to move the system forward.

And then, of course, the transition phase.

So you will select in August, you will then transition in August.

And then, of course, The new superintendent starts the 1st of September.

Next slide.

This is the timeline.

Of course, it's malleable.

But again, this is the timeline as presented to the board leadership last week.

And this is the timeline we're going to attempt to stick to unless there's some deviations by the board.

May H.Y.A. team will meet with each board member That's also part of the engagement phase to determine process and finalize the timeline.

That's happening as we speak, right?

And then, of course, as you drop down, we're going to post the job announcement or the position on the HYA website.

We're going to leverage social media as well as leverage the district's communicational conduits and channels.

We're going to begin aggressively networking.

We're going to accept the applications.

We're going to open the survey.

There'll be a very detailed survey.

We'll be able to elicit a tremendous amount of very tangible data from the entire community.

The engagement sessions are important, but if people are not interested in leaving their homes or joining online, they can spend a few minutes completing the survey which will provide us with enough information that we would need in order to build the leadership profile report.

Stakeholder interviews, and then we'll then submit the district leadership profile report to the board.

The leadership profile report is the fulcrum of the entire search.

That's the document that we'll use as well as will be shared with all of the aspirants.

Essentially, if they want to understand the district, based upon in-person survey engagement, based upon online engagement, stakeholder interviews, focus groups, forums, et cetera.

All of that information will inform the leadership profile report.

The end of July, there's a presentation of the slate to the board.

In August, we're doing first round, we're doing final interviews, we're doing an extensive background check, very extensive.

We're selecting, we're appointing, and we're transitioning.

Next slide.

So decisions and informational items for the search.

Very transparent.

We'll work very closely with your staff in order to properly position a page dedicated to the superintendent search.

We'll schedule interviews with the board.

We'll conduct surveys, focus groups, et cetera.

Madam Chair, I do believe that there is a hand raised.

I see that.

Director Sarge, do we want to work?

And we have the ASL interpreter as well.

Director Sarge, I'm going to come to you, but first let's make sure we're good from an interpretation standpoint.

I'm not certain that the other interpreter can see me because my camera is on.

Can you see me?

No.

We can not see you, no.

It looks like I am spotlighted.

Let's take just a few moments break here and hopefully have district staff reach out and figure out the interpretation issues here.

Is the other interpreter the initials A, N, A as in Apple, N as in Nancy?

ASL interpreter Tracy N. Oh, no, that's not what I see.

Okay.

And I do see the little image that shows that I'm spotlighted.

Tracy, our board staff should be reaching out to you directly to see if we can figure out the technology issue presently.

Tracy, can I ask for you to leave this team's meeting and then rejoin and then we'll reset the settings?

That's often the solution.

I will do that.

President Toth?

Yes, Director Rankin.

While we're paused, I will take this opportunity since we're addressing interpretation stuff to ask or remind folks to because the interpreters are spotlighted folks accessing the meeting through the interpretation might not be able to see who's speaking and they are not hearing the differences in our voices.

So when you do directors when we get to questions if everyone could please remember and it's helped me remember to to state your name before you start speaking so that the interpreter can let the audience know who is talking and they can access that information as the rest of us who are using the tone to distinguish.

Thank you.

For board staff, it looks like those on YouTube can see we're able to see Tracy, so maybe just something on our end.

So I am back now, but I'm not spotlighted.

We hope.

Well, I can see you.

There you are.

Now we are spotlighted.

Perfect.

I think we are good to go now.

Mr. Ali, do you want to take questions as you go or are we taking questions at the end?

Take them as we go.

Director Sarju.

Thank you.

This is Sarju.

S as in Sam.

A-R-J as in Joy.

U. I want to make a request and maybe you're already thinking about this.

We need to be able to have translated information language translation information on the SPS website and it needs to be at such a level that anyone really who speaks a language other than English can read it and understand it.

I think oftentimes people's experience at least what I've been told is that these kinds of presentations are very corporate and high level like there's lots of words that are used that are not necessarily accessible.

And so what my hope is, is that what we share to the website is presented in such a way that you actually don't have to have a PhD to read it and understand it.

So that's my request.

It's actually not a question.

It's a request that that be, Let that be created and structured in such a way that when we put it up on the website it's accessible to people.

That's it.

I'm done.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF- Madam Chair would you like the district staff to respond to that.

Sure, Director Sarge, just a point of clarification.

Are you talking about the survey that is going to be sent out?

What information, I guess, are you specifically referring to?

Well, number one says transparency, Seattle website and upcoming board meetings.

It is best practice to have one location on the SPS website dedicated to superintendent search page to communicate all information about the search.

We will have Ellie I think is here.

Miss Wilson Jones is here.

I think she is ready and able to pull up the draft website as currently structured.

Miss Wilson Jones.

President Topper, are you wanting me to share the website at this point?

Yes.

On the screen?

Okay.

Yep.

It's going to take a second.

I have to pivot between machines.

So for folks who are viewing, this is not currently accessible on our website because this is information that's being built as the board has this conversation tonight and plans out the superintendent search process.

President Topp, is there anything specific you wanted me to walk through?

I think maybe just talk about where this will be located and whether and how there will be translation if any is currently planned.

The superintendent search page would be located within the school board page of the district website.

I believe that there would be plans for making sure that our community is aware of this page by something on the homepage of the website and communicating with the broader SPS community.

I'd have to defer to Chief Redmond on translation and our standard practices for getting those communications out to our SPS families and students

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you.

My name is Beth Redmond, chief of staff and public affairs, the board office, SPS TV, all of that rolls under one canopy.

Concerning translation, it is our standard to translate into our top five languages.

And we will make sure that that is done and accessible through our website, as well as any documentation that we're sending or emailing to our community.

So I want to make sure that it's a clear standard that we try to hold to always, and that will be employed in this particular process.

Do board directors have any further questions?

Mr. Ali.

Oh sorry I didn't use I didn't get to the hand thing fast enough.

Just for my own clarification.

This is Director Rankin.

Thank you.

See I knew I would need that reminder.

This is Director Rankin speaking.

Just for clarification the staff we have a real person or somebody that provides the top five languages but if you don't speak one of those languages and seek a different language that we do also have the ability to access translation that's provided automatically through the website.

Is that right or am I miss.

You are completely accurate.

Yes.

Okay good.

So because I I don't want people to think top five or nothing.

Correct.

But we do have over 100 languages spoken by families and in SPS.

Yes.

It yeah so a staff person Translator does the top five manually.

I don't think that's the right word, but it can be accessed through other tools.

Thank you for confirming.

You are very welcome.

Thank you.

Do other board directors have questions?

All right, Mr. Ali, I will give you back the reins.

Thank you, Ms. Wilson-Jones, for pulling up the website, the draft website.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay.

Right there.

There we go.

All right.

So back to this particular slide, decision and information items for the search.

So as stated before, we're going to schedule interviews with each board member, each and every one of you are objective to understand your goals, desires and aspirations for the system and make sure that we include that in the leadership profile report, focus groups, we talked about that.

These are items that are very important.

We'd like to discuss at the onset of the search, say the candidates and expenses.

We use a slate between five and 10 candidates.

HY recommends that SPS reimburse candidates.

This is normally customary.

So this is not at all anything that's novel.

The application deadline will be July 31, 2025. There are multiple advertising options as underscored.

We would definitely publish the job in California because California is a very large state.

And so, of course, we're all on the West Coast together.

And there's nearly 1100 school districts.

And so there may be superintendents in the California area that we may be able to leverage the part of this process.

However, the search again will be national, a very national process.

So we're not just exclusively looking at California.

But again, we do want to be able to leverage as much as we can along the West Coast and throughout Oregon, et cetera.

And so, of course, our background checks, we do a very comprehensive third party due diligence check.

We're looking at every aspect of this individual, not the least of which includes credit.

And so, again, that information will be provided to the board in a very confidential manner.

We'll make certain that we keep the board apprised accordingly.

Next slide.

Right, so this slide here really unpacks who we are as HYA, your ambassador, your strategic partner.

We're in this together for the next 90 or so days.

And so this here really provides a glimpse into how we facilitate the group sessions.

And so they're versatile meeting formats, face-to-face, virtual, et cetera.

Flexible times.

We'll have people on the ground and in the air Morning, noon and night will do sessions around the clock.

We'll monitor emails in addition to working very closely with your staff to propagate the link so that all within the community have an opportunity to complete that link in short order.

Focus groups.

Students most certain we must lift.

An uplift to invoice in this process, parents, teachers, the classified staff, non-instructional staff, business, ecumenical, your union folk.

We want to make sure that we're inclusive.

We don't want to give an illusion of inclusion.

We want to make certain that we're inclusive in this process and that we're able to capture voices.

We want to be diverse and want to make sure that we do respect language, any language spoken within the district, And we're going to work very closely with your staff with respect to ensure that we touch each and every community member.

Next slide.

Mr Ali, I do.

This is this is President top.

I do have a question.

So for example, I know some focus groups or groups that would like to be engaged with specifically like the Superintendent Advisory Board, which is a group of high school students or the NAACP Student Council.

How do we make sure that you are connected with those folks?

What is that mechanism?

And then just sort of putting it out there as well.

I know that our student board members want to hold an engagement evening specifically on this issue for other high school students.

What are effective ways for us to make sure that we're getting you all those sort of places where we would like you to reach out or facilitate sort of hearing voices from our community?

So let me just say this.

Let's halt the presses.

I work for you.

I engage who you tell me to engage.

If the NLACP desires engagement, we'll engage.

If the students are interested in having a separate form, they shall be.

You simply tell us who you want us to engage and we will roll them into the process.

This is very simple.

This is like your way right away at Burger King.

We'll make it happen.

It's not a problem.

We'll be glad and ecstatic to engage the students.

So if any director has a specific organization, homeowners association, ranchers group, doesn't matter.

We'll talk to everybody.

We'll engage everybody.

Perfect.

Thank you.

No problem.

All right.

Next slide.

All right.

So survey and focus groups.

I want to lean very heavy into this because, again, it's very important to capture voice.

So the community survey will be live for two to three weeks.

A broad spectrum of individuals were desires of capturing in addition to ensuring that there's accessibility.

This survey is very critical and very essential because the data captured will then be given to the superintendent once hired because there's so much within the overall document.

So, for example, if the superintendent chose to want to modify, augment or update the strategic plan, the individual can ascertain and extract elements from the survey results in order to help to shape and cultivate that process.

Next slide.

So we've talked so much about this leadership profile report and I want you to look to my, I guess it's my left, perhaps your left as well.

There's a column, deep community engagement, successful and deep community engagement.

And then we look at the elements for which we've extracted information.

For example, your goals and guardrails.

We will analyze the goals and guardrails in addition to pushing down board interviews, individual interviews, focus groups all the way down.

All of that then pushes its way to the leadership profile report.

These are the documents we will use in order to form the foundation of the profile report.

And that document will be shared with all aspirants.

Now, in many searches, oftentimes people don't particularly focus on community engagement as much as we do.

But we understand, number one, you have to build goodwill.

There may be some healing that needs to occur, but most certainly people want to be heard.

Public is normally heard during a three-year cycle called an election.

They can vote yay, they can vote nay, they can vote you in or out.

We want to make certain that this process, we got three weeks, three weeks to be able to make certain that we are in a position to hear from the community.

And again, all of this information will be provided to the board as well as any individual desires of applying for the superintendency of the Seattle Public Schools.

Madam Chair.

You're muted Madam Chair.

Sorry Mr. Ali it looks like you have Director Sarju with a question.

Yes.

Thank you Sarju here.

So I'm curious if you if you implement a particular community engagement strategy and for example what I mean by that is are you doing you know community cafe style Are you, you know, reaching out like preemptively to certain groups to say, you know, tell us what's on your mind?

What questions do you have?

Like, what is your, and the reason, I'm gonna be transparent.

The reason why I ask this is that we generally don't do community engagement very well here because that's actually not, for most of us I don't know that any board director at least in this iteration of the board is are actually trained in community engagement.

And so I understand what it looks like to be part of strong and effective community engagement that was led by people who this is their profession.

This is their life's work.

They are really really good at it.

And so I'm curious what you all's experience is related to that because I think we name a lot of things community engagement and it's actually not community engagement.

And so I I know for some of the groups that I'm going to be putting forth, they know what real community engagement is and they will check us on it if it's if we say we're doing community engagement and that's actually not what happens.

And so I want to understand So that when I'm talking with, I've already got two or three groups that I'll be reaching out to.

I want to be able to say, yes, they are going to do authentic community engagement, but I need you to convince me that that's what you're actually going to do.

Well, I'm going to convince you very easily because I'm going to lean on you and your professional expertise and guidance.

Guess what?

You know your community better than anybody.

And so your wealth, your wealth of knowledge.

I'm going to take my cup and dip in it, okay?

And make sure I'm recording it, right?

Now, I'm going to tell you this.

I'm going to tell you this.

What we're doing is we want to listen to people.

We're going to have a couple of probes and prompts.

It's for us to listen.

It's for us to stoke, stir, agitate emotion, because we want to be able to elicit those responses.

We're going to write it down.

We're going to annotate.

And if individuals are not interested in us writing out their notes, then we'll direct them to the survey and they can do it confidentially and privately.

So these are more fireside chats as it were.

And I would also say that it really depends also on the group.

So for example, we have learned that the teacher is really like an online format, right?

They like several different meetings.

They like an online format.

We have the probes.

but those probes often lead to other conversations that they feel are important to bring forward.

And then we utilize what comes up in some scenarios and we build it on the next ones of the same constituent groups.

I will tell you that parents like online, they also some like an in-person format.

Certain community members love to have more of kind of a sit in a circle and let's talk, right?

And let's really have this kind of intimate moment.

And so it really does depend upon the constituent group.

We have experienced understanding what most like from that constituent group, but we never assume that that's the way it is in Seattle.

And so we will, as Makai said, lean on you, understand that, but also make sure that the people at the session feel like they are also a part of the process to be able to really be heard and to be able to shape the way that the evening goes.

That doesn't mean we don't have protocols.

That doesn't mean we don't make sure that we're getting certain information.

We're building off of information.

We're taking down information, triangulating.

But first and foremost, and for me, this is what is most important powerful about the engage phase.

First, it's an opportunity for the board to show its leadership by wanting community voice.

And second, when that community voice is reflected in the leadership profile and people see their voice in it, they feel that they have been heard and are a part of the process.

And that's our ultimate goal.

Okay.

I look forward to my individual phone call with you, Brother Ali.

We will talk more about this.

And I look forward to that.

But what I will say, if we're looking for a particular community engagement model, I would probably liken this to more community building.

I wouldn't necessarily liken this to any other aspect as far as deliberative dialogue, because we're not trying to persuade.

We're trying to build an understanding, right?

We're not trying to sell anything.

We definitely want individuals to come and share their perspective.

And I'll tell you this, if they say that, hey, you know, the district has not done anything for me in my life, whatever the case may be, we want to capture that because then that particular segment of the community, the new superintendent might need to focus a little bit of attention to understand, is this a situation that's systemic or is this a one-off?

So again, and the data will share a lot of that.

All right, so the presentation of slate.

So what does that mean in this particular, you know, this particular construct?

Of course, very confidential in the process to ensure that we're able to capture the best slate.

We'll bring individuals before the board.

These individuals are the best match to the leadership profile.

Again, I go back to that point of the leadership profile being the fulcrum of the search.

The applicants Not slated if the board wants those applicants will provide all.

The board will be availed.

A board portal.

That board portal you're able to review.

The applications at your leisure.

There's also workshops and other best practices that are built into the portal so you will be able to look at interview protocols as well as look at sample interview questions to prepare yourselves for the first round.

This will happen the end of July is when we will present the slate to the board.

Next slide.

All right.

First round of interviews.

So this would be a performative experience.

They'll do a SWOT analysis.

We can either break this down into two ways.

We can do an all-day session from eight to five of interviews, or we can break it up into two days.

We can show you two different schedules.

We'll put the two different schedules within the board portal so the board will at least be privy to what that will look like and how that would feel.

60 minutes, including Q&A, 15 to 20 minutes for the SWOT, and then, of course, the colloquy the members of the governing authority.

Each candidate will prepare their presentation.

And that presentation will then also be provided to the board.

The objective is for there to be a deep dive into the candidate's ability to understand elements of the system.

Now, we're not interested in telling an aspirant, well, this district is struggling financially.

We want them to tell us and we want them to also bring forth corrective action measures, right?

Bring forth fiscal stabilization strategy if there are issues within the areas of curriculum and instruction want them to bring forth a strategy for which they believe can help to move the system in the positive direction this really allows the board to ascertain an individual's presentation style and also their conceptual knowledge and then the intrinsic time spent really unearthing the challenges within the system now again There may be some aspirational aspects.

You may want to highlight some phenomenal things happening in the district.

Great.

But at this moment in time, what we're interested in is somebody who's done the due diligence.

If they've not done the work, it's going to be very difficult for them to pass the screening as far as moving forward as our first round selected slate folk.

So we do want to make certain that we're very conscious and cognizant of that.

Now, the second round of interviews, case study.

This would be a deeper dive.

Case study, the study would then utilize some data briefs that HYA has developed.

We have a whole system where we can come in, write a comprehensive data brief on the system, financial, student achievement, et cetera.

We're utilizing a source material as a part of this Analytics, as it were, and then the candidate will present 100 day plan that 100 day plan will pretty much detail their steps essentially within the first quarter of their arrival.

Right.

And not the first quarter of the year, but the first quarter that they've arrived.

And what are they looking to do by way of implementation?

This also allows the board another opportunity to have deep questions of the candidate.

to look at their styles, measure their competencies and their philosophy, et cetera.

And then of course, bring forth any issues or questions that you may desire to ask or questions you may have gathered based upon looking at their SWOT.

This is a much longer interview, roughly an hour and 30 minutes.

This allows a much, much deeper, deeper assessment of their capacity.

And so again, The objective here is to understand if this individual is ready, if they've done the necessary and requisite work to showcase that to the board, as well as are they prepared to walk in and begin leading the system, the comprehensive strategy.

All right, any questions?

Director Rankin.

Thank you so much.

This is Director Rankin speaking.

I am wondering if there's any part of the process maybe during the looking at the slate but maybe during the top two or top three or whatever it ends up and apologies if you said this and I missed it.

But I'm wondering about kind of 360 evaluation.

Is there an opportunity to talk for talk to maybe direct reports of one of the candidate or get a grasp on their past performance or examples of their work from somebody who's not them, who are, you know, if it's somebody from a school district, families or staff or other examples of initiatives that they've led, is there that kind of opportunity?

Absolutely.

And so that would be a part of That will be a part of the process.

They will provide those recommendations.

We have a way in which we dig deep into those references, and we can be able to extract that.

But I want you to, I want to underscore, look at this slide here.

Drop down under number seven.

It says TTI behavioral assessment.

This is the document you really want to get your hands on.

This is almost Myers-Briggs on steroids.

now you read this document i mean i'm telling you almost it's interesting because we've given this document to individual spouses and said is this reflective of your spouse unequivocally it is rarely do people ever say no now you have now this is a 50 page report you guys are going to have a tremendous amount of information to read you will not Have a shortage of reading as you're enjoying the beautiful, moist evenings of Seattle.

The dampness, as it were.

You will have a tremendous amount of information to read.

And this document here, this will give you more than what you're asking for.

The 360, you can get that too.

But the TTI, that's it.

Director Sarju.

I would just like to say real fast, our summers are real nice.

They're not wet or anything.

No one wants to leave Seattle in the summer.

Director Sarju.

I can put an amen stamp on that one.

So I don't know if this is a staff-related question or an HYA-related question, but I'm going to request for myself, this is only for me, that the applications that we receive for the ones who make it to an interview process, I am going to request that my copies' names be redacted.

And I have a very distinct reason why I'm going to do that.

And I can talk with HYA about it.

I'm not willing to state that on this call.

But it's one of the ways in which I can assure that there is no accidental by acts of commission or omission that a name gets out.

Like this, the confidence of this process is unspeakably important.

I don't think we can actually verbally say how important that piece is.

And so that's what I'm going to ask, that I don't want anybody's application with a name on it that I have to review until I'm done and it comes time for the interviews.

Then I can put a name with the application.

So is that something HYA could provide me, or do I need to ask district staff to do that?

Madam Chair and distinguished director, we can, if the board is inclined, this could be a blind process.

That's no problem at all.

This could very well be a blind process.

And as a matter of fact, you won't have any attributes, name, gender, sexual orientation.

You won't have the school district.

You would just pretty much have the content of that character and that of the creed.

has presented in all of the facts.

I've done that search in numerous places.

And as a matter of fact, it makes it very interesting.

Yeah, we do have experience doing that.

Makai Ali has led many searches in that model.

So that's something that we can discuss.

That's good to know.

And again, I'm going to be real clear.

That's what you're going to do with Michelle Sarju.

I don't I'm not trying to input into other board directors' process.

But when we talk about being truly objective, the fact that you've done this before, you just basically said to me why I'm excited to work with you.

Because that is a very unique way of recruitment, but it also removes bias.

It just absolutely, like, if you don't know somebody's black, if you don't know somebody's Latinx, if you don't know somebody's Chinese, then you're just looking at the person's skill and fit for the job.

And so I'm excited to hear that you've done that.

And I guess we can explore it more later.

But I'm letting you know that's what I want to get.

I don't really care what anybody else wants.

That's what I want to get.

Director, all the hands are going up now.

All the hands are going up.

Perfect.

We'll go to then Director Rankin.

Thank you.

Really quickly, I would just love to I'm very interested in this concept of a blind process and or a no name process.

I would love to know more from H.Y.A. about maybe pros and cons since you've done it before.

If there's other things we may not be thinking of, because I do think that's valuable for us to consider and I'd like to know more.

Absolutely.

Director Hersey.

I was just going to second the kind of like my ears really perked up when I because I had not considered the idea of a blind process I think uniquely for Seattle especially.

And given that like we would likely have folks who are internal and external applying, right?

I think that that gives us a lot of opportunity to judge whatever potential candidates we get with a fair slate, especially if we can, you know, figure out a way to do so with as little identifying information as possible right like even if we were to go there I would just want to make sure that like names of high schools things like that or like whatever schools that they might be working with like if there's a way to structure the application to safeguard for any potentially like inadvertent identifying information that would just be a real interest of mine but yeah I'm I'm actually really excited about the idea of applying process.

Yeah, I just simply wanted to also chime in with enthusiasm for that idea.

That's all I got.

I have a question.

That's called synergy.

I love it.

I have a question just as this is Director Topp.

As we are working on planning out our summer and our sort of what our work ahead, sort of give me a little bit of a time estimate on what you think this this will require of board directors, the search process will require board directors.

So as a cursory response.

The engagement sessions We encourage board members to attend.

However, we encourage you not to be actively involved because again, it's a listening session to elicit responses from the citizenry.

The board member's commitment will not be come as apparent and as needed until we schedule the first meeting to review the slate in the latter part of July.

So while you will see me, I'll be in town, I'll be interviewing many of you and working very closely with the team on the ground as well as your staff when necessary.

You and I won't see each other as a collective until the latter part of July, August.

Ours, I will probably encourage the board members to dedicate between the end of July and the end of August a minimum of four days four to five days five days five days in order to get the process and I'm adding extra time I'm being very very liberal in that five days total in order to do the interviews make the appointment negotiate the contract and of course final contract to people

And the review of material, is that included in that in that five day span?

Yes, it is because the portal will go up.

A few days before the meeting.

And we'll work very closely to ensure that the.

Identifiable characteristics are not.

Present.

That would give the board a few days to review, so once we get into the meeting to discuss the slate it's a much more hardy and rich discussion because you've had a chance to review the materials prior to.

As opposed to doing it all in a meeting will advance it as is the case for your normal school board meeting you received the agenda X amount of days in advance.

Questions from other board directors.

Any other discussion on this process or are folks feeling comfortable and ready to move forward in the next steps here?

Director Rankin.

Thank you.

This is Director Rankin.

I just wanted to say that because in the previous meeting where we were starting this process, I expressed a lot of hesitancy about just, you know, do we want to do an interim?

Do we want to do this?

What are all of our other options?

And so because I've said that on the record and to my colleagues, I wanted to say here that this feels like a really, I don't feel like that's a predetermined decision that we have to make.

I think we have, this is a process I personally feel really comfortable with and hopeful about finding a great candidate.

And I know also that we're not if we get to the end and and we don't see the right the right fit for what we need then we can keep the search keep the search going and explore other options.

But just because I had expressed you know worry before I feel really good about this process and your experience and in supporting other districts through.

these this this process you know I think it's a I know our community is going to be really interested and the end of the school year can be a heavy lift and a big ask and you know thinking back to a year ago we engaged on a pretty ambitious process as a board to listen to community for vision and values and people want to be involved and they'll make the time and and We had a sort of similar timeline and we're able to reach a lot of different parts of our whole Seattle community.

So I'm just, I'm now instead of being nervous, I'm very excited.

Madam Chair, if I can respond to.

Yes, please.

If I can respond to the disdain was General Eddie, who was number two in seniority on the board.

Number two.

I remember that, Director Rankin.

No, no.

Director, Vice President Briggs's, I believe.

Oh, length of time.

Oh, no, time-wise.

Length of time.

Length of time.

By a couple months, I think.

Brandon has me beat by month or two.

Those are two long months, Director Rankin.

I believe it.

Well, I'll say this.

I want to just thank you for your candor in our discussion.

Also, thank you for your confidence and I'm very ecstatic to be able to work with the board.

Our objective is not just to help you with the search, but to be your partner during this journey, during this process, provide advice and counsel to listen to criticism.

If there's criticism of the process, we can do an about face.

We don't fashion ourselves to be these intellectually adjoined individuals with all of the answers.

Education is a process which is ongoing.

You're learning each and every day.

And our objective is to quickly learn the community in short order and to allow you directors to serve as long as our tutors, to serve as our teachers.

And so again, I thank you immensely on behalf of HYA.

I look forward to working with each and every one of you.

Other board directors?

discussion as we wrap up this evening.

And once, twice.

All right.

Well, thank you, Mr. Ali.

Dr. Perez, I really appreciate the presentation getting us organized, moving us along in this process.

I think we are all very excited for the opportunity and the the journey ahead of us I appreciate that we get to end this meeting this evening around 6.08, so there being no further business to come before the board.

The special board meeting is now adjourned at 6.09 p.m.

Thank you, everyone, and I will see you all, or I'll see board directors, tomorrow evening for our regular board meeting.

Thank you, everyone.

Have a good evening.